Voices of Experience: Rachel Glaser, COO/CFO at Reunion.com

by Natalie Sabia (New York City)

Her journey started immediately after business school when she landed a much-coveted job at Disney. Over twenty years, she worked her way up in the company, holding various leadership positions in finance, operations and technology with studio entertainment, as well as corporate and consumer products divisions.

The imminent birth of her first child was a turning point. About to go on maternity leave with her first child, she was debating whether to take time off to be a stay-at-home mother. Her boss at the time talked her into coming back to work part-time. She was concerned, not sure how to manage the competing demands of work and motherhood. “I was nervous for the change, but I tried not to second guess my decision,” Glaser said. “If he hadn’t invited me back, I would never be in the position I am now.” By accepting the offer, she was able to raise her kids but also keep her foot in the door.

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Intrepid Women: My Life on the Street, Part II

by Paige Churchman (New York City)

The next morning, Genro and Paco marveled that we hadn’t been chased out, and we set off for breakfast at the St. Francis Mission, more than 50 blocks north. Outside a church on some midtown street, we joined a long line, spreading ourselves out among the real homeless people as Genro and Paco had urged. The streets hadn’t really come alive yet, but a few people in suits scuffed by without seeing us. I wondered what breakfast would be. I pictured a big basement room with tables and bowls of oatmeal. But when the line finally started moving, I found the payoff was a table on the sidewalk where a monk silently handed me two ham and cheese sandwiches in clear wrap. I gave one to another woman who hesitated and then took it with a smile. I saved the other for someone else later. I wondered, if I really were homeless, would I have to eat meat so as not to starve?

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Intrepid Women: My Life on the Street, Part I

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parkbench.JPGby Paige Churchman (New York City)

Labor Day weekend approached, and all week I’d answered what-are-you-doing-this-weekend with “oh, sticking around.” True, but… For the next four days and three nights, I would be living like, and with, the homeless. I had signed up for a Street Retreat run by the Zen Peacemakers. The street that I would be living on was as much a state of mind as the street that peppered financial conversations, but the two were worlds apart.

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Movers and Shakers: Real Estate

skyscrapers.JPGby Sima Matthes (New York City)

We try to focus on the positive here at The Glass Hammer, giving examples of women who’ve made it or are well on their way to the top of an industry. And much progress has been made, as can be seen from our reports on women in industries from pharmaceuticals to energy and everything in between. However, we were surprised at how few women could be found among the management of the top real estate companies listed on the Fortune 1000. Of the 10 real estate companies that made the list, not one has a female CEO, and two have no women at all in senior management.

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Voices of Experience: Shelley Hendrickson, Senior Vice President and Division Manager, Wells Fargo California Business Banking

shelley_hendrickson_pc_spencer_brown1.JPGby Heather Cassell (San Francisco)

Thirty years ago, peering into her uncertain future as a Spanish major at Colorado State University, Shelly Hendrickson, senior vice president and division manager for Wells Fargo California Business Banking, made a strategic move that put her in the driver’s seat of her own career and changed the course of her life. Upon someone’s suggestion that the Spanish knowledge could work well in business, she enrolled in a business course. Hendrickson says she “fell in love” and ended up double majoring in Spanish and finance.

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Intrepid Women: Piper Cherokee Rising

smallairplane.JPGby Kate St. Vincent Vogl (New York City)

Flying by the seat of your pants is more than making things up as you go along. It’s trusting your instincts. I learned how in a Piper Cherokee. Not the first small plane I’d ever been in, but the first time for me in the left seat.

My flight instructor had a comb-over and shoulders hunched from years of folding into impossibly small cockpits. I was so sure I’d earn quicker than most. For years my family had planes—Beechcraft, Cessena, Mitsubishi. I already knew about the walk around, the preflight checklist. I knew to yell “Clear!” before starting the propeller. But, I didn’t know I couldn’t count on the instruments, white numbers dialed in black upon a dusty instrument panel. Read more

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Movers and Shakers: Automotive Industry

racecar.JPGby Sima Matthes

According to a 2007 report, women make up fewer than 5% of the total number of CEOs in the automotive industry. However, the recent appointment of Kim Harris Jones to the position of senior vice president, corporate controller and auditor at Chrysler LLC, may be a sign that the industry on the road to change.

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Voices of Experience: Heather Gates-Massoudi, Director, Venture Capital Services, Deloitte

gates-massoudi_heather_spring_07_clr1.JPGby Caroline Shannon (Akron, Ohio)

For Heather Gates-Massoudi, balancing work and personal life has always been a juggling act. When she was in her twenties, it was all work and no play, with her spending much of her time cranking out audits or investment banking deals long into the night. Then, as her early thirties rolled around, Gates-Massoudi found herself squeezing in more personal time, including annual vacations to exotic locales. The same went for her late thirties, when she was able to take time off for her maternity leaves and to spend time with her family.

“Which leads me to today, where balancing means enjoying the time I spend at work and enjoying the time I spend with family and friends,” says Gates-Massoudi, 40, who is the director of venture capital services at Deloitte. “I feel incredibly balanced today taking time to work out, learn with my children, laugh with my spouse, spend with friends and being thoughtful, but efficient at work.”

And Gates-Massoudi’s thoughtful efficiency is exactly what got her where she is today. Graduating with her bachelor’s of arts in accounting from Colorado University, she moved right on to public accounting at Coopers & Lybrand which is now PricewaterhouseCoopers. Despite a brief hiatus, she spent nearly a decade there before continuing on to investment banking at Hambrecht & Quist, where she worked on initial public offerings in corporate finance. Once her work was done there, she joined venture-backed company, Participate Systems, as the vice president of business development and general manager of channel partnerships, eventually, leading to her position at Deloitte.

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Intrepid Women: The Language of Currency

greatwall.jpgby Kate St. Vincent Vogl (New York City)

Traveling to another country is a bit like traveling to an alien planet. “Assume laws of gravity won’t apply,” international marketing guru Christin Walth says, “and just roll with it.”

With this attitude, no matter how strange the land, Walth has always landed on her feet. In charge of marketing for Microsoft in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, she’s worked in Stockholm, London, Paris and Shanghai. In all her travels, Walth has found one universal truth, even in the remotest reaches of China: the common language of currency. Even street vendors pull out foreign phrases as if another of their most precious wares. “Beautiful lady,” they’ll say, “for you special deal.” It’s small talk that’ll get shoppers to buy, these micro-entrepreneurs know.

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Voice of Experience: Kathy Robb, Partner, Hunton & Williams

03011.jpgby Erin Abrams (New York City)

Kathy Robb, a partner in the New York office of the law firm Hunton & Williams, credits her success as an attorney in part to a willingness to embrace change and a passion for environmental issues.

The Glass Hammer recently sat down with Kathy, whose practice focuses on energy, environmental and administrative law, to talk about her background, her accomplishments and her advice for young women in law.

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